When You Hear Me Singing You Get the Rifle Down
by embroiderama
Summary: There’s a certain knack to salting and burning, and eightyearold Dean tries to learn it on his own.


Title: When You Hear Me Singing You Get the Rifle Down

Author: embroiderama

Challenge: spnchallenges First chart - first kill

Characters: Dean, Sam, John

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: graphic harm to an animal, angst

Spoilers: none

Word Count: 3,692

Disclaimer: None of the Winchesters belong to me, alas.

Summary: There's a certain knack to salting and burning, and eight-year-old Dean tries to learn it on his own.

Notes: Thank you to elanurel for the lovely beta job. Thanks also to writingpathways for encouragement and suggestions. The title is from Margaret Atwood's poem "Rat Song."

"OW!"

Dean jerked awake at the sound of Sammy's cry. He struggled to push off the covers that held him down to the bed and sat up, reaching for the light. He heard Sam moving in the bed across from him and then the sound of some kind of scratching on the floor. Dean snapped on the light and looked around the room but he couldn't see anything other than Sam, sitting up on his bed, wide, wet eyes blinking in the sudden light and his left hand clutching his right forearm.

"Sammy, what's wrong?"

"S-something bit me!" Sam held up his arm, hand still pressed tight to it.

"Like a bug?" Dean scrambled out of his bed and onto Sammy's, feet only touching the cold floor for a second. He sat down next to Sam and moved the covers around looking for insects. This new place was kind of a dump.

"No!" Sam shook his head wildly, tears starting to fall down his cheeks. "It had fur! And, and a tail! I felt it go across my hand."

Dean swallowed. It must have been a rat. Dean had seen a rat once, out by the dumpster by one of the hotels they'd stayed at, and the thought of something like that chewing on his brother made him feel sick.

"Let me see it." Dean reached out to touch Sam's arm.

"No," Sam pulled away. "It hurts!

Dean looked down, wishing Dad was there. He said he'd be home before they woke up in the morning, but that was still hours away. Sammy sniffled, and Dean reached out to cup a hand around the back of his head. Sam's curls felt warm and a little sweaty, and Dean petted his little brother's hair to help him calm down.

"Come on, you gotta let me take a look." Dean moved his hand to where Sam clutched his arm and gently moved the small fingers.

Two small punctures broke the skin in the middle of a reddened patch on Sam's arm, tiny beads of blood welling up from the center. "I'll be right back, Sammy. Stay here."

Sam nodded, his lower lip trembling as he stared down at his bitten arm, and Dean jumped down from the bed and ran to the bathroom as fast as he could. He yanked open the medicine cabinet and stood up on his tiptoes to reach the brown bottle of peroxide and the kinked-up tube of ointment. He got a big band-aid, like the ones Mom used to put on his skinned knees, a towel and a wad of toilet paper and hurried back to the bedroom.

Dean sat back down on the bed next to Sam and looked into his wet, red eyes. "I've gotta clean it, Sammy." Sam sniffled, wiping his nose with his unbitten arm, and held his hurt arm out to Dean. Dean poured some of the peroxide on the bite, catching the extra with the toilet paper and watching as white bubbles foamed up from the punctures. Once it stopped bubbling, and he got the skin dried off, he smeared a thick layer of ointment on the wound and covered it up with a band-aid.

"All better. Okay, Sammy?"

Sam just stared up at Dean for a moment and then nodded, the movement shaking tears loose from his eyelids. Dean reached out and wiped the tears up with his thumbs and then curled his arms around Sam's small back and hugged him. "Think you can go back to sleep, buddy?"

"What if it comes back? Is it gonna try to eat me again?"

"Nobody gets away with trying to eat my little brother. I'll keep watch until Dad gets home, okay? Come on, lay down."

Sam scooted back down under the covers, his eyes already drooping tiredly. "Too bright in here," he complained.

Dean flicked the light off and as his eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight coming in through the curtains he watched Sam fall asleep. When he was sure Sam wouldn't wake up, Dean slipped down from the bed and padded out to the living room. The rifle Dad had bought him for his last birthday stood propped against the wall. It felt good in his hands, comforting, and he settled himself on his own bed across from Sammy's to keep watch until morning.

An hour passed as Dean watched the corners of the room and listened to Sam's soft sleeping breaths, the loaded rifle heavy on his lap. Every time he felt himself getting sleepy, Dean thought about the rat he'd seen that time, imagined it touching his brother, hurting his brother, and sleep was the last thing he wanted.

After a while, Dean heard a sound, something that disturbed the normal rhythm of night sounds that he'd become accustomed to. Scratching, movement along the floor. There, near the closet, a large brown rat crawled toward the foot of Sammy's bed. Dean held himself still and then moved silently to pick up his rifle. He raised it to his shoulder, lining up his shot the way Dad had taught him. When he'd practiced shooting just last week, every single bottle balanced on the fence had exploded wonderfully into shards of glass. Dad had smiled and ruffled Dean's hair.

Dean centered the rat's fat body in the rifle sight and squeezed the trigger smoothly, anticipating the kick of the butt against his shoulder. Darkness blossomed on the wall behind the rat, and it fell over as Sam sat up, screaming.

"It's okay, Sammy! It's just me!" Dean dropped the rifle on his bed and turned away from the rat. He snapped on the light as he jumped over to Sam's bed, sitting himself in front of his little brother to block his view of the dead rat. "See, just me! It's okay."

Sam choked back his cries. "Dad said," he sniffled. "Dad said no playing with the gun when he's not here."

Dean rolled his eyes. Trust Sammy to complain about rules when he'd just been saved from being chewed on. "Wasn't playing, dummy. I got the rat."

Sam's eyes went wide. "Wow!"

"I'm gonna take it outside. Just close your eyes and try to go back to sleep, okay?"

"Can I see it?"

"No. Now sleep." Dean pushed Sam back down to his pillow and then flipped the edge of the comforter up over Sam's face before turning back to take care of the rat.

In the light, it looked so much worse. The mess of blood on the wall glowed bright red and wet in the light, and the rat looked…wrong. Hole blown through it. He grabbed the plastic grocery bag that lined the little trashcan in their bedroom and used it to grab hold of the rat. As he turned the bag inside out around the rat to wrapped it up, he could feel the still-warm, limp weight of it against his hand and shuddered.

He'd clean up the blood and stuff in the morning, but for now he just needed to get the rat out of the house. Tying off the handles of the bag, Dean walked to the back door of the cabin and put the rat outside next to the door. He knew he should put it in the big trash can out by where Dad kept the car, but he didn't have his shoes on, and he didn't want to go that far away from Sammy.

Dean closed the door, shivering from the cold night air, and hurried back to the bedroom. Sam was still awake, the edge of the comforter flipped back down, and he scooted over to the far side of his bed as Dean walked into the room.

"Please?" Sam implored Dean with his eyes, and Dean just gave in, knowing he could never resist that look. He turned off the light and slid in next to Sam. "Your feet're cold," Sam complained, but he still snuggled in next to Dean.

Dean wrapped an arm around Sam and closed his eyes, feeling his hand trembling against Sam's back as the excitement of making the shot left him.

God, he was tired. He started to think about the rat, about how it had stopped crawling, its body going slack from his bullet, but then sleep washed his thoughts away.

_Fur_ _brushed against Dean's face, the flick of a tail, and he sat straight up. The light was already on, and the rat sat at the end of the bed. Dean reached out for it, but it was too far away. The rat just sat there, licking blood off its paws, and Dean felt his heart clench up in his chest. He slowly turned his head, somehow not wanting to see, and when he looked at Sam he saw red, wet pits where his brother's eyes were supposed to be._

Dean jerked away from the awful sight, and the shock woke him up. He gasped for breath, running shaking hands over Sam's sleeping face, feeling Sam's eyes trembling under their eyelids, dry and whole and unbroken.

Dean pressed a hand to his mouth, afraid he was going to puke or cry or something else equally shameful. The dream had felt so real, and suddenly he knew. The rat was haunting him. Its spirit had to be angry, shot dead like that when it was trying to get food, and now it was punishing Dean.

Lucky for Dean, he knew what to do. The bedroom was still dark enough that he knew Dad wouldn't be home for a little while. Too long to wait to take care of the rat. He didn't know if the rat's ghost could hurt Sammy for real, but he wasn't willing to take the chance. Dean slipped out from under the covers, careful not to wake up Sam, and pushed his feet into his sneakers.

In living room, he found a flashlight, some matches and a box of rock salt. Supplies in hand, Dean pulled on his jacket and stepped out through the back door.

The plastic bag with the dead rat inside lay where he'd left it beside the door, undisturbed. Dean picked up the bundle, the form inside feeling cold and stiff now, and carried it out into the yard. There was a big bare patch with no grass where Dad had made a fire before, so Dean thought it would be a good place to put the rat. He knelt down on the ground and ripped the bag open with his fingers.

His hand brushed up against the small body as he pulled the bag away, and the rat's fur felt surprisingly soft. He took a moment to examine it, probing at the sharp whiskers on the rat's pointed snout. He picked the rat up and turned it over. The place where his bullet went through the rat's side gaped open, sticky and dark in the dim light, and Dean recoiled, feeling sick. Moonlight glinted off the rat's dead eyes, and Dean could feel it watching him. Time to get rid of this thing for good.

He took a handful of salt and poured it over the rat's body. He wasn't too sure how to do this. He'd watched from the car one time as Dad has salted and burned some bones, but he'd been kind of far away. Seemed simple, though. Salt. Fire. The rat's spirit would be gone for good.

Dean ripped a match from the matchbook and flicked it against the bottom part the way that Dad did, but nothing happened. He dropped the bent match to the ground and ripped another one off, trying to do it harder. The match sparked and smoked but refused to light, and Dean dropped it next to the other one.

Dean bit his lip, worried that he was going to fail in such a stupid thing as lighting a match, and tried again. This time, the match bloomed into a bright flame, and Dean held it to the side of the rat until the flame got too hot on his fingers. He dropped the match on the rat's side, and it burned for a moment, foul smoke snaking up from where the flame burned the rat's fur, but then it went out leaving only a small patch charred dark. No way was that good enough.

Dean sat back on his heels, grimacing at the smell of burned fur and the cold seeping in through the knees of his sweatpants. He thought about Dad making a fire in the fireplace at Pastor Jim's house. He'd used newspaper to get it burning right away, and they had some old newspapers here inside the cabin.

Dean stood up and ran inside. He ran down the hall to the bedroom to check on Sammy, but his brother was still sleeping, sprawled over onto the part of the bed that Dean had vacated. Dean grabbed some newspaper pages from the coffee table, checking quickly to make sure that Dad hadn't circled anything on them. Just ads. Good.

Back outside, he dropped to the ground next to the rat and picked it up just long enough to wrap it in a couple layers of newspaper and dump some extra salt inside. He put the paper-wrapped bundle back down on the ground and fumbled with the matches again. The first match caught fire, and Dean grinned for a moment, proud that he had managed to get the knack of lighting them, Then he held the flame to the edge of the newspaper and dropped the match as the fire caught and spread along the edge of the page. Dean stood up and took a step back, feeling the heat of the fire warming his legs.

The flames spread across the paper bundle until the whole thing was engulfed, and Dean wrinkled his nose and then coughed at the smell of burning fur, so much stronger than before. But then, much too soon, the fire flickered toward the ground and died out. Dean picked up the flashlight and shone it on the small mass at his feet. The newspaper was totally charred, reduced to flakes of black, but the rat underneath looked whole. Dean knelt back down and saw that most of the fur was burned off, the skin underneath splotched with red and black, burned away in places, bloody in others.

The horrible sight and smell overwhelmed him, and Dean reeled away. He stumbled a couple of steps and then fell to his knees, heaving up dinner and bile onto the bare ground. He choked, feeling tears forced out of his eyes, wet on his cheeks. His nose stuffed up, but he could still smell the smoke, still taste it, and it was the worst smell ever.

Dean knew the rat wasn't burned up enough. Wasn't just bones, wasn't just ash. The spirit could still come back, could still hurt Sammy. He needed to go back and try again, but his stomach kept cramping up, and his knees felt too weak to stand up anyway. The brief heat of the fire had faded away, and Dean was just plain cold, shivering in his light jacket. He had to pull himself together before somebody saw him like this, crying like a baby on the ground over some stupid rat.

Dean didn't hear the engine or the footsteps over his ragged breaths, so he jerked in surprise and nearly fell over in his own mess when he heard Dad's voice. "What the hell? Dean?"

No, no, he needed time to fix this. Dad would be so mad that Dean couldn't even manage this simple thing. Dean took a couple of breaths, trying to steady them so Dad wouldn't think he was a wimp. Then he saw Dad's legs in front of him.

"Hey, dude, what are you doing out here?"

Dean looked up at his father. Moonlight glowed off his leather jacket and shadows hid his eyes. "I'm sorry, I just have to finish!"

"Finish?" Dad crouched down in front of Dean, and Dean felt sick again as he saw Dad look down at the pool of puke between them and then over at the half-burned lump a few feet away. Dean didn't know what to do. His breath shuddered in his chest, and he looked down at his dirty knees.

He felt big, warm hands wrap around his arms and pull him slowly upwards. Dean pushed up with his feet, glad to find his knees would hold him now, but still didn't look up at Dad. He didn't want to see the disappointment that was sure to be in his eyes. Dad kept a hand on his shoulder and led him toward the house, detouring around the two messes on the ground. "Come on, let's get you inside."

Inside, Dad directed Dean to one of the kitchen chairs. Dean sat stiffly, shivering, looking down at the table in front of him. Then a heavy warmth engulfed him, and the smell of Dad's jacket pushed the smells of smoke and charred skin and vomit out of his nose.

The chair next to his scraped across the floor and then Dad sat down. Dad's fingers felt rough and calloused as they lifted Dean's chin, forcing Dean to look him in the eye.

"What's going on, Dean? What the hell were you doing out there? In the middle of the night?"

"I—" Dean didn't want to explain, but he knew he couldn't avoid it. Dad would figure out how much he'd screwed up one way or another. "I was trying to salt and burn a rat, but it didn't want to burn up right."

"Salt and burn—" Dad sounded confused. "Where exactly did you get a rat and what possessed you to try to burn it up in the middle of the night? By yourself?"

"I, um, I shot it." Dad looked angry, and Dean hurried to explain. "I know I'm not supposed to use the rifle without you, but the rat bit Sammy, and then I kept watch while Sammy slept, and it came back, and I shot it, and it was dead, but I think its spirit still wanted to hurt Sammy, so I knew I had to salt and burn it just like you would!"

Dean's words tripped over each other until he stumbled to the end of his story, not wanting to explain how the stench of the burning rat had made him sick.

Dad put a hand on his arm, holding the leather jacket in tighter. "Whoa, whoa, all right. Is your brother okay?"

Dean nodded. "I put first aid stuff on his arm, and he went back to sleep. It scared him when I shot the rat 'cause it was—" Dean broke off, swallowing. "It was real loud inside the room."

"Yeah, I bet it was."

"But I was careful! I didn't shoot anywhere near Sammy! I got it in one shot!" Dean thought about shooting the bottles with Dad, about the neat, perfect explosions of glass. Then he thought again about the rat, how it had exploded with wet, red blood rather than sparkling glass. He put his hand to his mouth as his stomach turned over again, threatening to embarrass him even more.

Dad rubbed his hand against Dean's back until Dean put his hand back down in his lap. "Good job, buddy. Explain to me about the burning, okay? You know you're not supposed to mess around with matches."

"The rat was haunting me. It wanted to hurt Sammy."

Dad looked like he was going to argue, but then he closed his eyes and shook his head. "So you tried to salt and burn it? Like you saw me do?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "But it didn't want to burn up. It was—it was real gross."

"Yeah, I'm sure." Dad looked sad, and Dean wasn't sure if he was in trouble or not.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you finish it?" Dean thought he ought to ask Dad to show him how to finish it himself, but he really didn't want to have to see that rat again that night. "Will you finish burning it up so it can't hurt Sammy?"

"Dean, it's--" Dad sounded like he was going to explain something, but then he just stopped. "Yeah, I'll finish it."

"Thanks, Dad." Dean looked down at the table, rubbing the dull scratches there with one finger.

"Okay, dude. You go wash yourself up, and I'm going to check on Sammy. Then you need to hit the sack before it's morning, got it?"

Dean nodded.

"We'll talk about this some more in the morning. You could have got hurt, Dean, you can't be—" Dad's voice started to sound angry, but then he cut himself off and looked down. "You did good protecting Sammy, though. I'm proud of you."

Dean felt warmth flood through the parts of him that were still cold inside. He stood up, handed Dad's jacket back, and went to the bathroom to scrub dirt and newsprint and ash off his hands and rinse out his mouth. In the bedroom, he found Dad bent over Sammy, tucking his bandaged arm back under the covers.

Dean climbed up into bed, and he thought he wasn't going to be able to get to sleep, wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about the shiny-red, burnt-black skin of the rat, the rat that had been brown and fat and skittering across the floor a few hours before, but Dad stood next to the bed and pulled up the covers, and suddenly Dean felt overwhelmingly sleepy. Dad didn't say anything, just put his hand on Dean's head and smoothed his hair back as Dean's eyes got too heavy to hold open.

Dean heard Dad's footsteps moving away and the creak of the door. He could never be sure if he was still awake then, or if he'd fallen asleep and started to dream, but when he woke up in the morning Dean thought he remembered his father's low, quiet voice saying, "I'm sorry."


End file.
